New Director of Public Health
Highly Qualified Health Care Professional

by Fred Hernandez
The moment you meet this highly qualified public servant you know you are meeting a true gentleman. Nattily dressed in a three-piece gray suit, button down white shirt perfectly starched, with a red and black tie, Dr. Clifford Brown comes across as a professional through and through. With a resume long enough to fill a small book, Clifford Brown, OD, MPH, FAAO(D), CAPT/US/HS (Ret) is obviously on top of his game.
No stranger to hardship he was born in Corvallis, Oregon, and raised in a shack in Washington State where the grocer, who was twenty-five mile away, kindly sent enough food to sustain the family until the harvest season. His dad was a member of the famous 3rd Army of Gen. George Patton and with his unit liberated four concentration camps in Germany during World War II. After the war, his father held a forty-eight hour a week job while going to university where he was taking nineteen units a semester until he collapsed from TB and was sent to a sanitarium. They were simple hard-working folks who never even owned a new car.
Clifford loved music and in his early youth and dreamed of becoming a band player (cornet and voice), an idea which took him to the Los Angeles area in California. Once he realized how tough the competition actually was, he changed gears, completing undergraduate and professional education and joined the U.S. Air Force under a scholarship program, serving four years during the Viet Nam conflict. Out of the Air Force he moved on to Canada for a time. From Canada, he was recruited by the U.S. Army to serve in the European theater (Germany) with a specialty team of pediatric professionals as a pediatric behavioral vision optometrist for the Exceptional Family Member Program. The team assessed children with special needs, then designed educational programs tailored to each child to assist special education teachers.
He served during Desert Shield and Desert Storm for three years as Deputy Chief of the eye clinic and Administrative Officer for the 2,000 bed hospital in Frankfurt, Germany. After that war he returned to the states and transferred into the U.S. Public Health Commissioned Corps. stationed in Montana, where he served as Eye Clinic Chief of the Blackfeet, Pine Ridge, and Crow Agency Community Hospitals for the respective American Indian reservations. As a Senior Health Administrator and Operations Chief for the Department of Homeland Security in Washington D.C., Dr. Brown managed a variety of doctors and professionals who daily reviewed reports of disease outbreaks affecting humans, livestock, crops, and water resources. Eminently qualified for the position of Custer County Public Health Director, Dr. Brown brings forty seven years of professional health care service experience to his new job.
Not one to waste any time, Dr. Brown has already formed an Advisory Committee with whom he will consult on various matters concerning the public health of the county. The group he has assembled includes ranchers, law enforcement personnel, business owners, lawyers, pastors, and other citizens who represent a cross section of the population. The members of the committee will be available for advice and consultation at a moment’s notice. In fact, this committee will be operational immediately, possibly even this week.
With much experience from his military days Dr. Brown has taken a special interest in traumatic brain injury for veterans. Knowing Custer to be home to many veterans, he is working to unify and promote the general health of the veterans. When asked about his workdays, he states how much he enjoys what he does.
Today, Dr. Brown and his wife, Linda, make their home in Custer County. They share eight children most of whom are grown up and seventeen grandchildren. Linda has her Doctorate in Education and teaches educators who are seeking their MA at the University of Nebraska. She currently teaches remotely.
Dr. Clifford Brown, the newest addition to our local officials is a great asset to the community, and we offer him our heartfelt welcome to Custer County.